Howard Kline Gallery – Bisbee, Az

My interest in art started as a child when I produced back yard circuses’ complete with homemade sets. I started producing income at a young age by charging a small fee to the neighborhood children to see my circus. While in high school, I was a “sixty’s” rock drummer and even before attending Montserrat in 1973, I was developing a following and selling my work.

While attending Montserrat College of Art, one of my teachers was a student of Hans Hoffman, the Godfather of Abstract Expressionism. During the four years of art school, I learned classical figure drawing and how to incorporate my own life’s experiences and draw on them as ideas for painting. I continued to create my own style after graduation in 1977 and I did what most artists are dreaming about, I opened my own gallery where people could buy directly from me. Attending art school was positive but nobody told me that what I was learning might not apply to what I was actually painting. I had to invent my own style and then I found the history behind it.

My fascination with the female form, improvisational jazz , my history as a New England Lobster Fisherman and my love for the sea have contributed to the inspiration for my work. My painting style is borne from the highly emotional Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940′s. This painting style has strong emotional content that captures the essence of the moment by purely visual means. In 1974 I started to paint abstractly and then abandoned the style for the figure and more representational images. About ten years ago I revisited the theme and discovered a renewed interest in working with just shape, color and form. Another happy accident is my discovery of a void in the art market that my abstract watercolors are filling.

After thirty years painting in New England, I wanted to be in a less conservative environment and reach a wider audience with my art. With a detailed search of the art colonies of the United States, I decided to move my studio and gallery to Cambria, one of California’s art colonies by the sea. I was delighted to find the perfect building to buy in the west village on the highly traveled Route One. This happened in the year 2000 and another decade of my art career was in the making. Now it is 2013 and I discovered Bisbee Arizona. Again I found the perfect building on the sunny side of Main Street. Bisbee is called the Copper Queen City as it housed one of the largest copper, gold and silver mines of the last century and the buildings (including mine) are still standing since 1905. The New York Times calls Bisbee, Arizona a “Greenwich Village West”. From copper to culture you will find an enclave of art galleries, whimsical cafes, fine dining, brew pubs and a robust nightlife featuring muses and musicians, dancers and divas, painters and poets, authors and actors. And top this off with a comfortable average year-round temperature of 78 degrees. This place has a rich history and is a great tourist attraction for the arts and architecture. Come see me soon.